Class clowning Class clowning (September 23, 2005)

Local schools offer fodder for Mountain View teacher's hilarious memoir

By Jennifer Dietz Berry @text As the back-to-school season commences, my cousin in Orange County will make her usual production of getting the kids to class. Her twin girls will be strapped into the middle row of her 10-seat SUV, with her son riding along in the way-back seat.

The girls will get front-door shuttle service rather than walk a little more than three blocks to their elementary school because, you never know, there might be a kidnapper loose in the neighborhood. And her son with autism will not ride the special education bus to school either, because who are those bus drivers anyway and how can you tell if they're safe?

Mountain View writer and third-grade teacher Phillip Done probably hasn't met my cousin, but after 20 years working as an elementary school teacher in Mountain View and Palo Alto, he knows her type. So well, in fact, that he devotes a whole chapter in his book, "32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny," to parents just like her, whom he calls the "doozies."

In this chapter, Done praises the many parents who helpfully volunteer to caravan on field trips and sew Glinda the Good Witch costumes for school plays, but it is mostly a tribute to the other 10 percent -- the "doozies" -- who keep classroom life extra-colorful for a teacher. They are the parents who inspire his fellow teachers to post signs outside the classroom doors reading, "No dogs or parents allowed!" -- the parents he drafts letters to but never sends:

"Dear Ms. Uptight,

"Yes, the bus for the field trip is safe. No, your son will not have to really kiss Snow White in the school play. Yes, I know he is allergic to peanuts and I will not give any for snack. Thank you for the water bottle; I will make sure he doesn't get dehydrated."

"Dear Mrs. Proud,

"I know your son is not reading like some of the other children. He is a boy. He wants to play. Yes, he is not reading the same book as your neighbor's child, but he is reading. And he is progressing. Please, chill out."

"32 Third Graders" is mostly a memoir, or series of anecdotes, tracing the highlights of a year spent teaching third graders, and interspersed with flashbacks of Done's own experiences as a kid in school and his early days as a teacher. The chapters are short, fun, and easy to read.

At a time when the average suburban parent seems to be taking his or her child's schooling (and safety) just a little bit too seriously, it's refreshing to have a writer like Done, who is able to take a step back from the fray and laugh at the kids (and the parents) who populate his classroom.

Local readers may find added entertainment value in guessing whether Done is talking about their child or one they know: He taught for over a decade in Sunnyvale, and spent another four years teaching at Fairmeadow and Duveneck elementary schools in Palo Alto.

A word of warning: The subtitle of the book -- "Life Lessons from Teaching" -- is potentially misleading. This is not, thankfully, an attempt to imitate the inspirational-type books along the order of "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten." Done is mostly interested in telling funny stories and getting a laugh.

There is, for example, the chapter on sharing. Here, he recounts the day his student Emily brought her dog Meatloaf to class. What begins innocuously enough with Meatloaf performing tricks like "sit" and "lie down" ends with the dog being spun around backward so that Emily can "share" with the class that the dog's testicles are not real, but are in fact plastic implants known as "neuticles."

Encounters with animals are a recurring theme in "32 Third Graders." The class bunny, Precious Penelope Sunshine III, makes an appearance (and a trip to the vet) after growing disturbingly vampire-like fangs. And there is Killer the pet snake -- a gift from one of the parents -- who orchestrates an escape only to return weeks later and wreak havoc on an unsuspecting teacher.

There are touching stories as well: the way his class bands together in a relentless effort to marry off Mr. Done, whether it's to one of their aunts, or a teacher down the hall (Mrs. Sanders, who is already married), or to the elderly Mrs. Carter who's been divorced for 50 years. And there are sound words of advice for new teachers, drawn from personal experience -- one of the most memorable being a near-death encounter involving a laminating machine and a necktie.

In quieter moments, Done pauses to reflect on the mysteries of the child psyche -- "Why is it that they can't figure out how to put their homework into three-ring binders, but when I can't get the VCR to work they can fix it?" -- and to identify paradoxical truths about their behavior: "They will always grab the shortest pencil in the pencil box because it is more fun to write with a pencil that is one inch long. But they will always pick the largest pair of scissors from the scissor box because it is more fun to cut with the big scissors."

And yes, for those readers determined to find a "life lesson" in this book, it's got that too. But don't expect Mr. Done to spell it all out in cliches or catch phrases -- he's a much better teacher than that.
INFO: "32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny" by Phillip Done; Touchstone Books; 288 pages; $19.95
This story originally appeared in the Palo Alto Weekly, the Voice's sister paper.

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